The doctrine of sola Scriptura has long been contentious, for any number of reasons. In the early American period, with a Christianity greatly influenced by populism and democratic ideals, it served as a license for people to interpret the Bible free of any traditional authorities such as ordained clergy and confessional standards. To put it bluntly, it gave them a license to do whatever they wanted. Nathan O. Hatch, in The Democratization of American Christianity, observes this:

Any number of denominations, sects, movements, and individuals between 1780 and 1830 claimed to be restoring a pristine biblical Christianity free from all human devices. 'In religious faith we have but one Father and one Master,' noted the Universalist spokesman A. B. Grosh, 'and the Bible, the Bible, is our only acknowledged creed-book.' 'I have endeavored to read the scriptures as though no one had read them before me,' claimed Alexander Campbell, 'and I am as much on my guard against reading them to-day, through the medium of my own views yesterrday, or a week ago, as I am against being influenced by any foreign name, authority, or system whatever.'

Protestants from Luther to Wesley had been forced to define carefully what they meant by sola Scriptura. They found it an effective banner to unfurl when attacking Catholics but always a bit troublesome when common people began to take the teaching seriously. For the Reformers, popular translations of the Bible did not imply that people were to understand the Scriptures apart from ministerial guidance. Thus when dealing with a scholar such as Erasmus, Luther could champion boldly the perspicuity of Scripture, its clarity for all: 'Who will maintain that the public fountain does not stand in the light, because some people in a back alley cannot see it, when everybody in the market place can see it quite plainly?' Yet when confronted with headstrong sectarians, he withdrew such democratic interpretations and admitted the danger of proving anything by Scripture: 'Now I learn that it suffices to throw many passages together helterskelter whether they fit or not. If this is the way to do it, I certainly shall prove with Scripture that Rastrum beer is better than Malmsey wine' (179-180).

Abraham Kuyper once wrote, in his Encyclopedia of Sacred Theology, that it would be foolish for someone to attempt to hike through the mountains of Switzerland without the help of a guide or a map. That is analogous, of course, to saying neither is it wise for someone to take up the Bible and attempt to interpret it apart from the wisdom of the Church throughout the ages. "In its rich and many-sided life, extending across so many ages," Kuyper wrote,

the Church tells you at once what fallible interpretations you need no longer try, and what interpretation on the other hand offers you the best chances for success. On this ground the claim must be put, that the investigator of the Holy Scriptures shall take account of what history and the life of the Church teaches concerning the general points of view, from which to start his investigation, and which paths it is useless to further reconnoitre.

Kuyper's sentiments are entirely antithetical to most of American Christianity, both past and present. As much as democratic ideals have done good things for America as a political entity, insofar as people have allowed those ideals to shape the Church in America, they have done a great disservice. Like I said in my last post, God grants authority to the Church, not the individual. He gives Scripture to His covenant people that it may reveal their Lord and shape and govern their life according to His will. To be sure, the individual must appropriate Scripture for himself (Deut. 6:4-9; Psalm 119; 2 Tim. 3:16-17, etc.), but never in a vacuum.

Our identity as Christians is not primarily that we are individuals saved by Christ. This is true, but it is not primary. What is first is that God has called a people to Himself, has redeemed them and brought them into a covenant relationship with them. Individual believers consitute that people, but not atomistically; their corporate identity as the body of Christ is at the fore. It follows here, then, that our reading of Scripture is to be done in this covenant community and not apart from it. This is not to say individuals should not read their Bibles on their own, of course, but that when they do so they should read it through what Kuyper calls the "consciousness of the Church." The Bible is, after all, God's covenant document with the Church.

When I was in college, Albert Wolters once said something like, "Don't worry, you can't come up with any new heresies. They've all been tried already." I'm not sure if that was intended to comfort us, but the point was that if we set ourselves some theological boundaries and recognize that the Church throughout history has already tried a myriad of interpretations, approving some and disapproving others, we have ourselves a pretty reliable guide as we travel today.

History matters, tradition matters, and the Church matters. They are gifts. Lean on them.

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John Williamson Nevin, the German Reformed theologian, wrote this in an article for the first edition of the Mercersburg Review in 1849:

The liberty of the sect consists at last, in thinking its particular notions, shouting its shibboleths and passwords, dancing its religious hornpipes, and reading the Bible only through its theological goggles. These restrictions, at same time, are so many wires, that lead back at last into the hands of a few leading spirits, enabling them to wield a true hierarchical despotism over all who are thus brought within their power.

The Holy Spirit grants authority to the Church, not to the individual.

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R. Scott Clark, a professor at Westminster Seminary in California, wrote a book recently called Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice. The premise of the book is that the Reformed community is losing or has lost its sense of identity, and that it needs to recover it. Clark writes, "Much of what passes as Reformed among our churches is not. Its sources, spirit, and methods are alien to Reformed theology, piety, and practice. There are significant segments within the Reformed communion that define 'Reformed' in ways that our forefathers would not understand" (4).

Earlier today, John Frame posted a review of the book on his website. Someone apparently told Frame that the book should instead be called, Why John Frame is Wrong About Absolutely Everything. While that is humorous, it recognizes that there is a tension between Clark's and Frame's ideas of being Reformed, and that Clark is, in part, taking Frame to task in the book. If you're going to read the review, be sure to sit back in a comfortable chair—it is very long.

I haven't read Clark's book, and I won't if his writing in the book is anything like his blog (which I've had to stop reading because I have to keep my blood pressure under control). The problem with guys like Clark is that while they sometimes raise good questions—and I think the points in his book are largely worth discussing—they do it without humility and grace. Frame has taken to calling contentious voices like this the "Reformed Controversialists," and for good reason. More time seems to be spent on tearing others down than on constructively working through the issues at hand. It is unfortunate, because they could bring a lot of good questions to the table, and their voices could contribute a lot more to the building up of the Church.

In Ephesians 4, Paul talks about the need to speak the truth in love to preserve the unity of the body of Christ. As I've mentioned before, there is a reason that they honoured Frame by titling his festschrift with those words. All of us who have been privileged and blessed to study under him will tell you that there are few men who are willing to interact with those they disagree with as lovingly and graciously as Frame does. He has been a wonderful role model for us and for the Church. Jude 3 says that we must "contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints," something Frame devotes himself to. And he does it recognizing that, like Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, if he has not love, he has nothing.

I'll be the first to admit that our traditions are important, and that we cannot live in a historical vacuum, ignorant of where we came from and who we are. These are good things to talk about, and I think Clark is right to raise questions about our Reformed identity. But resorting to a sort of hostile polemic to argue a case and misrepresenting those who hold views you don't agree with is not helpful; indeed, it's harmful and destructive to the Church (again I must acknowledged that I haven't read the book, but have spent quite a lot of time reading Clark's blog). Maybe this is the reason large segments of the Reformed community don't want to be identified with that small (albeit disproportinately vocal) segment of the Reformed community.

Read Frame's review if you want his take on the nuances of Clark's argument. All I want to emphasize is that when we interact with others who don't share our perspectives, we must do it with love and charity. We do so because of our love for God, because of our love for our neighbour, and because of our love for the Church. Granted, this is a lot harder than just lobbing grenades at your opponents. But it is required of us, and doesn't leave a trail of destruction in our wake; instead, it leaves a Church that is strengthened, edified, and brought closer to the unity Christ calls us to.

By all means, raise questions, provoke thought, discuss issues. But do so in love.

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Yes, dear church-goer, there certainly is. From the Westminster Larger Catechism:

Q. 160: What is required of those that hear the Word preached?

A. It is required of those that hear the Word preached, that they attend upon it with diligence, preparation, and prayer; examine what they hear by the Scriptures; receive the truth with faith, love, meekness, and readiness of mind, as the Word of God; meditate, and confer of it; hide it in their hearts, and bring forth the fruit of it in their lives.

Kind of flies in the face of that whole, "Here we are now, entertain us!" mentality of American evangelicalism, doesn't it?

Do forgive the cynicism. In reality, yes, this is a significant responsibility given to those who hear the preaching of the Word. But it is also one that comes with great blessing. Think of the words of Psalm 1: "Blessed is the man...[whose] delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither." That's a powerful image. And the corresponding negative is powerful too—without meditating on the Word we essentially become dead trees in an arid land, barely holding on, if at all.

Go read Psalm 119. It is telling that David's longest Psalm is about his love for God's Word. Oh, that we would sing praises like that for the Word of our Lord!

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John Frame is frequently accused of being a bad confessionalist. In fact, there are some who even want to deny him the right to use the label altogether, although given its largely negative connotation these days he likely wouldn't think it worth the effort to object. The introduction to his latest book, The Doctrine of the Christian Life, contains a brief discussion regarding his approach to doctrinal formulation, which seems to directly address the concerns of the aforementioned parties.

His 2002 book, The Doctrine of God (commonly referred to as DG), was the referent for the discussion. Some felt he did an injustice to the Reformed confessions by not establishing thorough enough historical support (that is, citing or employing the formulations of the confessions) in giving shape to the theology contained in the book. Frame's response, in his own words, is as follows:

My purpose in writing DG was not simply, or even primarily, to expound the doctrines, but mainly to establish their foundation, to persuade readers that they are true. DG is an argumentative book. Ultimately, for those who believe in sola Scriptura, the only way to establish the truth of doctrines is to appeal to Scripture. It might have been helpful for me to include more historical material to help people understand the doctrines better, to understand why they have been formulated as they have been. But I cannot think of a single instance where additional historical citations would have made my presentation of those doctrines more persuasive.

Given sola Scriptura...even when a theologian does cite historical sources, including confessions, it is then necessary to go back to Scripture to establish the truth of what those sources say. The main value of the confessions, then, is to mediate the biblical teaching. But is it too much to ask that in an 888-page book I might occasionally bypass the middle man?

What I find paradoxical about all this is that what brings Frame under fire from the self-titled confessionalists is precisely why Frame is actually an exemplar of good confessionalism. His theology is first and foremost rooted in Scripture, and all doctrinal formulations remain subject to that ultimate authority. This is exactly what the Reformers and post-Reformation leaders intended when they drafted the confessions.

With respect to what he said above, then, we see that from Frame's perspective a doctrine can only be shown to be true when it's Scriptural foundation is demonstrated. Mere exposition of what the confessional documents teach is insufficient for validating the truth of a certain doctrine. Naturally, insofar as the confessions reflect what is established from Scripture, they too can be upheld as truthfully reflecting the teaching of the Bible. But it is what is taught in the Word of God that necessarily forms the groundwork for any doctrine and theology.

In a footnote appended to the last paragraph cited above, Frame says,

A former colleague has described this procedure, not favorably, as 'zero-based budgeting.' If that is a fault, I plead guilty. Zero-based budgeting in theology is a good thing, a necessary consequence of sola Scriptura. I am thankful to Luther and Calvin that they did not merely assume the truth of their traditions, but brought them under the scrutiny of Scripture. They were zero-based budgeters with a vengeance.

Frame's love and appreciation for the Reformed tradition and its creeds and confessions cannot be questioned. Even greater, however, is his love for the Word of God. He recognizes an important place for the Church's creeds and confessions, one that I think would reflect Abraham Kuyper's perspective regarding the role of tradition in theology. On the one hand we recognize that confessional documents are, by their nature, vested with a degree of objective authority. Determining exactly what degree of authority is something we need to wrestle with. Some err on the side of treating them as nearly infallible documents, while others give them no credence whatsoever.

In the end, Frame's mediating position represents the healthiest form of confessionalism. He highly respects these documents while contending that they must always remain subject to the authority of Scripture. This high respect is verified—and this is important to note—by the fact that after decades of doing theology, Frame has taken exception to very little of what is in the confessions (in this context, the Westminster Standards). If this makes Frame a bad confessionalist, then I am not sure what makes a good one.

And so, in appropriating the Church's creeds and confessions, I gladly take my cue from Frame. If that makes me a bad confessionalist too, so be it.

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